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Mother Carey's Chickens 



A BOOK OF VERSE 



/-- 



'BY 



WILBUR LARREMORE 




'NGTOV>i. 

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 
104 & 106 Fourth Avenue. New York 



c^^ 






Copyright, 

1888, 

By O. M. DUNHAM. 



Presj W. L Mershon & Co., 
Rahway, N. J. 



CONTENTS. 



Mother Carey's Chickens i 

SEA-60RN 4 

The Neophyte 7 

Trinity Church 8 

Gone 10 

An Iconoclast u 

Their Days of Waiting Are So Long . . 13 

The WiLLdw Tree ,15 

Malvern Hill 17 

The Day-Dream 23 

In The Moonlight 26 

Buttercups 30 

August ... 32 

Winter's Advent 34 

Chivalrie 35 

J. Edith 36 

Fame 40 

Pygmalion to Aphrodite 41 

Rollin 42 

To My Pipe 44 

To An Amateur Cornetist . , . . 45 

Two TURKEY-COCKS 48 



ii CONTENTS. 

VIATICUM. 

Alma Mater 53 

Viaticum 55 

JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND BARTOLOME 

DE LAS CASAS 65 

SONNETS. 

Nature 77 

Helen of Troy 78 

Loved Even Yet 79 

After Sickness .81 

A Year 83 

Emerson 84 

Longfellow 86 

Bryant 88 

L'Envoi 89 



MOTHER CAREYS CHICKENS 



NELSON STANLEY SPENCER 



MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS. 




HEN seas were calm, and, far away, 
Blue sky and dark blue water 
. met. 
As tranquil as the day wherein 

There brooded not a cloudy threat, 
They hung o'er ocean's gently heaving breast. 
Flitting with languid grace from crest to 
crest. 



When waves uprearing high and fierce 
Curved stalwart necks in wild disdain, 

The little waifs yet onward plied, 
Tangled in nets of flying mane, 

Hoping, perchance, to find at last a nest 

In the vague distance of the gray-bound 
West. 



2 MOTHER CARETS CHICKENS. 

And when the quiet night came down 

And peace had quelled the tempest's wrath, 

Still by the stars I could descry 

Those patient hearts upon our path ; 

They may have seen beneath the waters dark 

The lamps that sent up here and there a spark. 



I mused the hours away, and thoughts 

As fugitive and sombre-hued 
As our dear faithful followers, 

Rose in my mind — a pensive brood. 
I found of life a stern epitome 
In these staunch children of the air and sea. 



On restless pinions fluttering. 
Impelled by genius of the age, 

Neath skies' impenetrable gray. 

O'er billows' black and wildering rage. 

We are mere storm-waifs hoping to divine 

A shore that ever proves horizon-line. 



MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS. 3 

And ever foiled and ne'er dismayed, 
We strive with eager sense to sound 

The constant riddle of the years — 
The Infinite that hems us round 

Until it takes us to itself. One morn 

The sea-birds, fading into blank, were gone. 



SEA-BORN. 



SEA-BORN. 




N safe seclusion of her prairie 
home, 
Queen of a bluff, out-spoken heart 
that holds 
Her wish his law, and of a red-cheeked brood, 
Her outward life is trite and full of peace. 
But oft when winds run billowing through the 

grain, 
Or wail at night like frenzied castaways, 
Unreal, yet how vivid, will arouse 
Mem'ries of what could not have been a 

dream ; 
And in her ears a longing music dwells, 
Like murmur of the conch, that seems to 

breathe 
From far away where skies are gray and sad. 



Awaking with a start at dead of night, 
When rains flee hurrying before the blast. 



SEA-BORN. 5 

And beat and break in waves upon the pane, 
Again she doth live over awful hours, 
Till then forgotten, of her former life. 
She knows that voice that howls among the 

boughs, 
Long ages since it haunted wonder-land. 
Before her heart had dreamed of the k\\- 

Good, 
Or the first vague and tremulous thought of 

CzOd 

Unprompted came beneath the silent stars, 
She knew there was an Evil One whose voice 
Shrieked hideous through far abysms of space, 
Who did inhabit darkness as the birds 
White-winged dwelt upon the noonday air. 

The green wheat sinks and rises at her feet. 
She gazes o'er the pulse of silent waves 
And it doth seem but yesterday — anon 
It seems unreckonable years agone, 
When she would look o'er leagues of gentle 

surge 
And listen to its crooning lullaby. 



6 SEA-BORN. 

Those magic, yearning voices haunt her life ; 
She must have Hved from all eternity ; 
Before the world became what now it is 
Those were the sounds that ever filled her 

ears. 
And quenchless as the rhythmic monotone 
That still flows on and on within her mind, 
Life will stretch out beyond the dim unknown. 

She kens not when or in what clime her 

eyes 
Opened upon the world. She never felt 
A father's clasp or knew a mother's voice. 
The grim and garrulous and kind old sea 
Her youth did rock, as in a mother's arms, 
And filled for aye the chambers of her soul 
With sounds that whisper in his deepest 

caves. 



2 HE NEOPUYTE. 




THE NEOPHYTE. 

N fervent clasp his youth's ideal 

He raises o'er the tide ; 
Across the deep he fain would bear 
it, 

And reach the thither side 
Still holding it aloft, in sunlight bathed, 
By all thewildering turbulence unscathed. 

His better self ! will he preserve it 

And life's long turmoil breast? 
Ah ! he who bears a soul's ideal 

Within the realms of rest 
Must greatly cope, though single-armed, and 

saves 
A treasure from the hungry maws of waves. 




TRINITY CHURCH. 



TRINITY CHURCH. 

BOVE the haunts where Mammon- 
worshippers 
Madden in strife for Wall Street's 
yellow hoards, 
Doth Trinity in tapering silence point 

Aloft, to show the earth is still the Lord's. 

Days come and pass, the life-tide ebbs and 
flows. 

And beats about its base with tumult rude; 
It greets alike, with calm and massive peace, 

The restful night, the seething multitude. 

Below are tablets, weather-worn and quaint. 
Marking what once were graves, in other 
times ; 
The mounds have long been leveled, and the 
men 
Are gone where go the softly distant 
chimes. 



TRINITY CHURCH. 9 

Between three worlds — the silent world be- 
neath, 
The world above the sod where discords 
dwell, 
The world on high where franchised spirits 
are — 
Stands Trinity, a carven sentinel. 

It rises from the graves to mount beyond 
This realm of earthy aims and groveling 
sins. 
Higher it pierces — in that tranquil blue, 
Somewhere above, Earth ends and Heaven 
begins. 



16 



GONE. 



GONE. 




EAR it away, earth's crumbling 
heritage ! 
Yet tenderly, for where he once 
made stay. 
And told the hours of Time's disquiet stage, 

To our bereft hearts still is sacred clay. 
This we have cherished, this could him en- 
cage ; 
Not earth's blue dome can shut him in to- 
day. 



AN ICONOCLAST. H 




AN ICONOCLAST. 

HIS day I have cast all my statues 
low, 
My idol men, empedestaled and 
grouped — 
The nowaday Olympus of the mind. 
They were my dreams' ideals brought to life, 
And I have found them flesh and fallible. 

O Thou whom craving man has toiled to 

house 
'Neath dome and arch, in formula and creed, 
And hoped to reach through wine-drenched 

hecatombs. 
And Druid incantation, and the march 
Of priestly state and choruses of praise, 
Resounding like the forest racked with wind ! 
Thou whom through twilight that ne'er grows 

to day 
We seek, whose glory would our vision blast 



12 AN ICONOCLAST. 

Could we behold ! O Thou to whom the soul 
Instinctive leaps as vainly ardorous 
As flame-tongues for the sky ! 

Grant me a peace — 
Me, the bereft, but wiser grown than erst. 
Bowing to forms where guiled and yearning 

youth 
Beheld the likeness of the Time-old Quest — 
Give patient resignation to await. 



DA YS OF WAITING. 13 




THEIR DAYS OF WAITING ARE SO 
LOxNG. 

[heir clays of waiting were so 
long, so long ! — 
Greeting with smiles that over- 
brimmed in tears ; 
Parting for sluggard months — but hope was 
strong 
To draw a solace from the coming years. 
And o'er the barren hours, their life to be 
Hover'd in blissful dreams by night and 
day. 
As, in mid-azure o'er the sleeping sea. 

The wizard dreams of glad lands far away. 
But days of waiting were so long ! 

Their time of living was so short, so short ! — 
A twelvemonth of unrippled heart-content. 

The long past faded and they took no thought 
Of morrow hid where blue horizon bent. 



U DAYS OF WAniNG. 

If they had asked aught, they would have 
prayed 
Only to drift for aye, unchanging, blest, 
Nor dreamed they on that Heaven could in- 
vade 
A cloud to mar the bliss of perfect rest. 
Their time of living was so short ! 

Their days of waiting are so long, so long '.— 

For she was summoned, smiling through 
her tears, 
And he is desolate — but hope is strong 

To draw a solace from eternal years. 
No cloud their blissful greeting may invade 

Upon the quay of gold by pearl-strewn 
sands ; 
The long past shall anew dissolve and fade 

In silent kiss and clasp of wistful hands. 
But days of waiting are so long ! 




THE IVILLOW TREE, 



THE WILLOW TREE. 

[LLOW TREE, O Willow Tree, 
Why cast down so utterly ? 
Earth's heart freed from frosty 
rest 

Beats beneath her grassy breast, 

And the warm blood of her veins 

To thy topmost limb attains ; 

Sky is blue with June — the sun 

Thrills each other leafy one. 

Sunlight chiding shunneth thee, 

Willow Tree, O Willow Tree ! 

Willow Tree, O Willow Tree, 
Thine is silent threnody. 
Speechless motion of thy leaves 
On the grass a darkness weaves. 
Men are dreamers of a dream. 
Life is myth, and fate supreme. 
Earth a mound-scarred tomb to thee, 
Willow Tree, O Willow Tree ! 



1 6 THE WILLOW TREE. 

Willow Tree, O Willow Tree, 
I inhale thy sympathy. 
I did lay a loved form low 
'Neath the frozen turf and snow. 
Lids like fringed petals drew 
Close for aye o'er hearts of blue. 
Smiles that lit her latest breath 
Lingered on in waxen death. 
I became like unto thee, 
Willow Tree, O Willow Tree ! 

Willow Tree, O Willow Tree, 
Peace to futile elegy ! 
Winter's day of anguish done. 
Sky is blue with June — the sun 
Brings new blossoms where the blast 
Rent the dead leaves of the past. 
June doth stir my sluggish blood. 
Life again with hopes shall bud ; 
All my grief I bury deep 
In thy drooping sunless sleep. 

Alas, I shall come oft to thee, 
Willow Tree, O Willow Tree ! 



MALVERN HILL. i? 




MALVERN HILL. 

(the second morning after the battle.) 

HE gray! you wear the gray? I 
was struck down 
When gray-coats broke retreating 
from the field ; 
The bugles and the yells were in my ears 
When sudden darkness fell too quick for 

pain. 
And when, through nightmare of my whole 

past life, 
I faltered back to self the air was still, 
Day like a murky twilight filled the sky. 
Dimly I saw the bodies piled and felt 
Their blood in streams — I know it was the 

rain 
That flooded the ravine — but then it seemed 
Those mangled flesh-heaps with exhaustless 
veins 



1 8 MALVERN HILL. 

Were bleeding, bleeding, drowning me in 

blood. 
I should have drowned here but for frenzied 

strength 
To prop my shoulders on this neighbor 

slain ; 
I swooned, the flood subsided ere I roused 
And I have lain all night again till now. 

Thank you ! you have a heart beneath your 

gray ; 
The brandy fills me with a life of flame. 
I smell the orchard perfumes that would steal 
Each morning through my window as I woke. 
And hark ! my redbreast's anthem ! God is 

good, 
Upon a lost field dying 'mid the dead, 
The bird I love, a robin, not a vulture ! 

No, do not raise me up, I need my strength ; 
The end is near, my feet are numb and cold, 
Up-creeping death will soon engulf my heart, 
And I would speak with you before I go. 
I did intend to die with breast unlocked 



MALVERN HILL. 1 9 

And not leave e'en to God the means on 

earth 
To set my memory aright with her 
Who was my conscience, but alas the world 
Takes hues through glaze of death it never 

wore ; 
The silence that was duty during life, 
Were at the grave's brink treachery to self, 
I place my vindication in your hands, 
Then lay me in that trench the rain has 

washed. 

She was my conscience once, my purer self, 

I grew to measure all things by the test 

Of what I knew her judgment would decide. 

She was from Carolina and had passed 

Her childhood in the South ; but I had 

heard 
My father daily at the family prayer 
Call down on Slavery the curse of God. 
Still I did love her tenderly and kept 
A prudent tongue, till at her hearth one 

night 



20 MALVERN HILL. 

Her brother, reading from a Southern print, 
Detailed with smacks of Up and fiendish glee 
The story of a captured negro flogged 
Nigh unto death, and branded in the cheek 
Because he fled for liberty and failed. 
I seemed to sniff the hemlock scents from 

home, 
I was my father's son, I spoke for him. 
And with the pent-up anger of a year 
Denounced the infamy, the cherished crime 
That make our land the century's stumbling- 
block — • 
Forgive me if I wound your Southron heart, 
Forgive the truth from one about to die. 

Her father held the young man back from 

blows. 
In silence I was suffered to depart. 
And I have never spoken with her since. 
They carried her to Europe for her health, 
I followed, but they left no trace behind. 
I tracked misleading rumors to their source, 
Watched journals in all tongues and mixed 

with crowds 



MALVERN HILL. 21 

In cities of all lands. I know not how 
She was immured that not a word or sign 
Could reach me in my agony of quest 
For three long years — and then they reap- 
peared, 
She was a w^ife and mother — I have learned 
That they had won her from me by a lie ; 
I could not blame her that she did believe, 
For she was taught from infancy to think 
An Abolitionist was all things vile. 
A wicked story of unfaithfulness ! 
They said I was unfaithful though betrothed. 

And then my abnegation long began. 

I saw her one night through an opera- glass. 

The ghost of her old smile would rouse at 

times 
At witty flashes in the comedy ; 
But O ! the wearied sadness of that face. 
The look of having yet so many years 
To worry out before the end would come ! 
Naught could undo the past, I held my 

peace. 
The only hope of happiness for her 



2 2 MALVERN HILL. 

Was still to think that I had been untrue, 
And build within the future of her child 
A new life on the ruins of her youth. 
And I did love her well enough to guard 
The torturing secret of my innocence, 
And thought to hide it with me in the grave. 
But O ! I can not wander forth like one 
Unshrived, still foul to her and unforgiven. 
Do me the tardy justice of the truth. 
He may not be a sharer in the lie, 
Her husband — and when I am gone, her life 
May flow on peacefully if she know all ; 
Aye, happier, perchance, when she can think 
That this unquiet heart has reached repose. 
My new, last friend, if you will seek her out, 
Say that I loved her tenderly till now. 
Tell her it was a loathsome, cruel lie. 
Tell her — 

no brandy now — bend close your 
ear — 
She lived in Petersburg — a colonel's wife — 
Her name — 




THE DA Y-DREAM. ^3 



THE DAY-DREAM. 

E had gone when the land was phiing 
'Neath Autumn's relentless blight ; 
When forests that whispered fore- 
bodings 
Were painted with hectic light. 

The desolate earth was mourning 
As only a stricken one grieves ; 

And the joy of two hearts was buried 
For a season 'neath fallen leaves. 

He had folded her close to his bosom, 
And pressed on her lips a farewell ; 

He had gone — and a loneness utter 
On her path like a darkness fell. 

But oft in the lapse of a day-dream, 
Thought's mazy wings were unfurled. 

To hover in azure and sunshine 
Beyond the gray rim of the world. 



24 THE DA Y-DREAM, 

And once when the spell had gathered 

Her wearied senses about, 
And opened the dream-world within her, 

And silenced the world without, 

Again did the land seem barren 
And bare save for drifted leaves, 

But apples hung low on the branches, 
And garners were piled with sheaves. 

Again o'er the hills they wandered, 
And lingered in woodland nooks. 

Or followed the wayward windings 
Of sluggish and leaf -strewn brooks. 

From yellow expanses of stubble 
Came the cheery whistle of quail, 

And, through air of opiate purple, 
The muffled beat of the flail. 

Again 'neath the trees he kissed her — 
The trance is dissolved by a gleam 

Of light that illumines her being — 
Was that but the kiss of a dream .? 



THE DA y- DREAM. 25 

The dream is alive with a presence 
That close by her side remains, 

As she passes the mystic confines, 
And the portals of Sense regains. 

And feels tender arms about her. — 
Her eyes that are freed from the spell 

In life-land behold, as in dream-land, 
The face that she loves so well. 



26 nv THE MOONLIGHT. 




IN THE MOONLIGHT. 

HE moon from Heaven was stretch- 
ing 
A wand of magic afar ; 
Its shadow fell in the river, 
A wavering silver bar ; 
And from it a weird enchantment 

Dropped like impalpable rain, 
On a world that by eerie beauty 

Was chastened from care and stain. 

My darling sat by the window, 

Enshrined in the tender light, 
It was just a month since our bridal, 

And just such another night. 
We saw on the lawn beneath us. 

In the arbor this side the pines, 
Two forms whose outlines were muffled 

By the trellised curtain of vines. 



tN THE MOONLIGHT. 27 

A smile leaped forth from the hidden 

Blue depths of two quiet eyes, 
A face with sweet mirth suffusing : 

My lady was earnestly wise : 
In course of our love-dream above stairs 

She had watched another below, 
And thought she beheld in the moonlight 

A romance of the broom and hoe. 

Without a word we descended 

For a frolic upon the lawn. 
Hoping only that stealthy footsteps 

Would not of our coming forewarn. 
In the spell of the vision unfolding 

For a moment we stood at gaze ; 
The river wound far where the distance 

Was gauzed with a silver haze ; 
And all the air was a glamour 

Upon the mute landscape hung ; 
And earth was a pictured legend. 

And life a poem unsung. 

We stole out within the shadow, 
Then paused, as if turned to stone, 



28 IN- THE MOONLIGHT. 

We eaves-droppers scared but shameless 
At sound of a voice well known. 



Yoii have knoivn my past and its sorrow ^ 

Have stood by t-he grave of my youth. 
I loved you at first for the reason 

That we both loved her who is gone, 
Afid shfiffered together in silence 

When joy and hope vanished from earth. 
Your help a?id your solace full-hearted 

ThrougJi changing years grow more dear., 
And life's little remnant I offer 

With devotion and perfect trust. 

O, my grave and taciturn father ! 

O, gentle, beloved aunt ! 
Ye had plotted in closest secret 

The primmest romance extant. 
But while we dovelets of twenty 

Indoors were content to coo, 
Ye must needs, ensconced in the arbor, 

Make love 'mid moonlight and dew. 



hV THE MOONLIGHT. 29 

And love from the land immortal 
Enwrapped human hearts below, 

As purely as moonlight that folded 
The earth in a dream of snow. 




30 BUTTERCUPS. 



BUTTERCUPS. 

IVE me the secret of life universal: 
How does the earth, like a poet's 
ripe brain, 

Bring forth the fruitage of fact and of fancy — 
Oak-trees and buttercups over the plain ? 

Whence the mysterious instinct that broodeth, 

Silent, immortal, through torpor and cold, 

Till the sun tempts one more summer, green- 

bladed. 

Forth from the tomb of the years in the 

mold ? 

Thus could I stand with my questions till 
doomsday, 
You, my sweet flowers, are heedless and 
mute : 
Yes — though perchance the great All-soul of 
nature 
Bides just beneath in the soil at your root. 



BUTTERCUPS. 31 

But I'm beginning to moralize gravely, 
Touching on themes that sage heads have 
perplext ; 

Here will I pause — you are my inspiration, 
You the whole sermon as well as the text. 

Yours unalloyed is the gladness of being : 
Tremble with rapture and spill on the 
ground 

Sunshine by thimblefuls — each little chalice 
Lavish the infinite joy it has found. 

Then, as the winds in the distance awaken, 
Scattering fragrance abroad as they pass — 

Shallops on breast of the meadow at anchor — 
Ride the green, languorous billows of grass. 

Little it matters what fate is ordaining ; 

Children may wantonly pluck you in play ; 
Your fleeting span has been amply sufficient ; 

You have been beautiful for a whole da;. 



32 



AUGUST, 



AUGUST. 




T was one of those August days 
When, spiritualized by haze, 
The air is purple revery. 
The hills were a blur of deeper blue 
Like the horizon-line at sea. 
The breeze that would fitfully arouse 
Had been a-haying in the mows. 
Bent and shrunken the sallow maize 
Like sapless graybeards gone a-craze. 
Over the brook the leaves of a beech 
Like parched tongues lolled down, 
To water gurgling just out of reach 
O'er pebbles musical and brown : 
The lazy brook was wider awake 
Than men and women or birds and boughs 
It glided between the patient cows 
That stood in tranquil, meek-eyed drowse. 



AUGUST. 



And sprent the air with motes of spray 
Lashing the droning flies away. 



II. 



Then there glittered a fire-fly spark, 

The trees were losing themselves in the dark 

That gathered the fading West in a cowl. 

From far came the curdling hoot of an owl. 

A shrill dispute of katy-dids ; 

The stars were waking with blinking lids ; 

A bat skated past in erratic flight ; 

The haze was a fog of murky light. 

In the East, that would be murkier soon, 

The crescent tip of a blood-red moon. 




34 WINTER'S ADVENT. 



WINTER'S ADVENT. 

[TH winds like heralding furies, 
From his realm of night, in the 
north, 

From strongholds encastled with icebergs, 
The Winter came suddenly forth. 

And when the winds for a respite 

Shrank back and were still in their lair, 

The sky was o'er-cast and leaden, 
And brooded in sullen despair. 

But gently and slowly from cloud-land 
Came fragments of diamond glint, 

Star-flakes, heaven-coined, still retaining 
The beauty and stamp of the mint. 

Then myriads scurrying downward 

Enfolded the barren dearth ; 
And the dark under-lining of Heaven 

Became the white carpet of earth, 



CHIVALRIE. 



35 



CHIVALRIE. 




[hat, little Mabel! reading old 
romance ? 
Come here, and leave that dusty 
chimney-nook, 
And do put by that antiquated book — 
I'll show you all you've read at one swift 

glance. 
The sunlight gilds earth's carpet of soft snow, 
Behold without The Field of Cloth of Gold ! 
The trees are knights so valiant, tall, and 

bold. 
Steel-clad in icicle-mail from top to toe ; 
And see the evergreens upon the lawn — 
Fair ladies who will never lose their charms ; 
Soon will the wind sound loud the battle- 
horn — 
There'll be a tournament with clash of arms, 




36 /. EDITH. 



J. EDITH. 

HOU wast not born before thy 
time, 
For thee the world is at its prime : 
This Eastlake era ; day of pugs ; 
Of plush screens libelous of bugs ; 
Of tigers prone on glossy rugs, 
And tapers trim in brazen sconce ; 
This comely Queen Anne Renaissance ! 
The age awaited thee serene, 
Self-poised and wise and just sixteen. 

It seems nor jest nor masquerade 
When thou dost don the stiff brocade, 
The gold-clocked hose and yellow lace, 
With more than worthy grandma's grace. 
Think what poor things some mortals are 
Who never had a grandmama-! 
And she who spends her days at chores. 
Who never 'broiders, prinks or draws, 



/. EDITH. 37 

And seeks at night hard, welcome cot — 

The tragedy of such a lot ! 

Yet, thy patrician ways are sweet, 

And we do deem it not unmeet, 

In earnest half, and half in sport. 

To own thy sway and pay thee court. 

Thou ne'er didst soberly despise 

The humblest heart 'neath homely guise, 

Who, raised by worth, her fate above. 

Could unembittered toil and love. 

For us of every day, thine own. 

Thy love informs each look and tone ; 

And love makes glad the loyaltie 

That faithful vassals bring to thee 

Of dainty port and tender mien, 

Gracious and fond at just sixteen. 

As keen as poet's rapture thine ! 
Life is a cup of bliss divine ; 
Thou canst do all save mount and fly 
For deeper draughts of sun and sky. 
Doffing the old, thou canst forget 
Staid, stately steps of minuet, 



3^ /. EDITH. 

And trip a gay, impromptu maze 
'J'o thine own blithely warbled lays. 
A special dialect thou hast ; 
And honest, English \vords recast 
By those arch, saucy lips express 
All shades of dire coquettishness, 
Accompliced by demure, gray eyes 
Where Merriment in ambush lies, 
Anon to issue and retreat 
With Fancy's transformations fleet — 
Thy moods the iridescent sheen 
Of teeming joy at just sixteen ! 

I would not bid the Future ope, 

Or seek to cast the horoscope. 

Old Time (who's called a surly one, 

But has a grim, sly sense of fun,) 

May some day try to palm on me 

A portly matron form as thee. 

But, climbing to the garret's height. 

In dim, not irreligious light. 

Mid aged, eyeless tiger rugs. 

And screens by moth bereft of bugs. 



/ EDITH. 39 

And ghosts of dead and buried pugs, 
I shall behold the real thee ; 
Again with pensive gladness see 
This age incarnate in its queen, 
Self-poised and wise at just sixteen. 



4o FAM^. 




FAME. 

E saw it on the moor-lands, 
Feebly and dimly bright, 
Dancing, luring, fleeing, 
A ghost of ruddy light. 



He followed, all forsaking — 
Where dank marsh flowers wave 
O'er death that lurks beneath them 
He found at last a grave. 



PYGMALION TO APHRODITE 41 



PYGMALION TO APHRODITE. 

ODDESS fair of soft desires, 
Thou whose spirit is love-laden, 
Kindle passion's waking fires, 
Breathe thyself into this maiden. 

Love's sweet influence round her moving, 
Love her soul and essence giving, 
May her life be simply loving, 
May her love be simply living ! 




42 ROLLm. 




ROLLIN. 

ILKEN fur so sleek and glossy, 
Satin paws and velvet ears, 
Breast as white and soft as sea- 
foam, 
Eyes — two yellow, jewelled spheres ! 

Facile grace that takes caresses 
As his birthright and his due ; 
Pure aristocrat that never 
Aught but wealth and purple knew ! 

Sensuous ease in air and posture. 
Eyes half closing faintly peep. 
Purr as gentle as the breathing 
Of a maiden lost in sleep ! 



ROLLIN. 43 

Rollin lies before me dozing, 
On his head a sunbeam plays, 
Has not seen or heard the stanzas 
I have written in his praise. 



44 TO MY PIPE. 



TO MY PIPE. 




LIGHT thee and conjure sweet 
visions in smoke, 
Siren-shapes forming and wreath- 
ing in play, 
Fairy-sea rising and falling in waves. 
With fragrance of spice as from isles far away. 

Thou hast been the true friend of my studi- 
ous hours, 

Knowledge came with thy smoke and its 
eddying grace, 

And wisdom, though lingering, came too at 
last, 

And increased as the color grew dark on thy 
face. 

And whenever the world seemeth heartless 

and rude. 
Thy blue, floating fancies my solace shall be : 
I'll take thee, old friend, and evoke as of yore 
A poem between the world's coldness and me. 



to AN AMATEUR CORNETIST. 45 




TO AN AMATEUR CORNETIST. 

I. 

[ANKIND would rend thee joint 
by joint, 
Or to a ling'ring death would 
cane thee, 
Would vote thee worse than Hunter's Point, 
And pray the Board of Health to bane thee. 

When first thy prelude cleaves the night, 
Strong men on bent knees quaking tumble, 

Hearing the Last Trump, in affright 
Await the End's initial rumble. 

Then maddened at the false alarm, 
Helpless, but muttering profanely, 

They listen while through even's calm 
Float trills and flourishes ungainly. 



46 TO AN AMATEUR CORNETIST. 

Oh ! faint not ! Pour thy two tunes forth 
In rapt succession, slumber scorning, 

Till heavy eyes, and Hps that froth. 
With anger greet the gray of morning. 



But I have seen your kindred grand 
On pedestals of homage posing 

(What time I strayed on Coney's strand), 
With eager crowds around them closing. 

And many now who toss and groan, 
Before the brazen calf were bending ; 

O ! choose your most blood-curdling tone, 
The harsh tornado's roar transcending ! 

And would your fellows might be sown 
Broadcast through this Philistine city, 

With lungs of iron, hearts of stone. 
To blast till daybreak, dead to pity ! 

That men may run, as from the Fiend, 
At sound of brass, imploring mercy : 

And human nature may be weaned 

From thralldom to a worse than Circe 



10 AN AMATEUR CORNETIST. 47 

A fog-horn soloist who blares 

With turgid, cork-screw variations 

Vour self-same two, long-suff'ring airs, 

And struts and smirks through loud ova- 
tions. 

Then blow ! Through trembling midnight 
blow ! 

In Art's true service you've a station. 
O, friend, build better than you know ; 

Bring on your craft annihilation. 




48 7'IFO TURKEY-COCKS. 



TWO TURKEY-COCKS. 

N sooth, thou'rt not a pretty bird, 
Thy plumage lacketh tints and 
lustre, 

Why wilt thou stand with tail outspread ? 
While wondering kindred round thee 
cluster ? 

Yon peacock struts by Nature's right, 
He to a gorgeous tail is pendant ; 

But thou, O envious, would-be fop, 
Art not thus caudally resplendent ! 

Although thou'rt sleek, thy beauty ne'er 
Could gain the candid predilection ; 

Thy virtues only will appear 

With sauce and knife and fork dissection. 

O ponder on thy certain doom. 

And strive presumptuous pride to govern ! 
In trage.dy thy life must close. 

Think of the gravy and the oven. 



71V0 TURKEY-COCKS. 49 



Ah, foolish, discontented one. 

That seekest with thy fate to quarrel 

But, turkey, I've a human friend, 
And thou for him wilt point a moral. 

He is a giant round the waist. 

His legs are pillars short and bandy ; 

A Falstaff 's form and ursine grace, 
At heart a Romeo and dandy. 

He is a ponderous gallant, 

And cultivates the tender passion ; 
He says his greatest joy in life 

Is but to hold a lady's sash on. 

His mind is filled with genteel lore, 
To feed society's scandal-hunger ; 

He has no peer in social art, 

He's an inspired gossip-monger. 

And yet the world laughs in its sleeve. 
Laughs at his ardor, his dimensions, 

His mincing, elephantine pace, 
His rakish manner and pretensions. 



50 7-ivO TURKEY-COCKS. 

Ah, sad for him, he must compete 
With rivals younger far and thinner ! 

His truest forte would be to grace 
A cannibal's Thanksgiving dinner. 



VIATICUM, 




ALMA MATER. 53 



ALMA MATER. 

LOVED Alma Mater, thine arms 
still around us 
Are clasped in their last and 
their fondest embrace ; 
We sever this day the ties that have bound us 
While blessings beam forth from thy time- 
honored face. 
We know not the future, 'tis veiled in the 
shadow 
By this pensive hour of sad parting cast ; 
But one wish we have, that the years yet 
before us 
May be but as happy and bright as the past. 

Like caravan halting equipped for the jour- 
ney, 
We turn a last look on the joys we must 
leave, 

And hope that the blessing vouchsafed us at 
morning 



54 ALMA MATER. 

May cheer the long day till the shadows of 
eve ; 
And oft as we toil o'er the glare of the sand- 
waste 
We'll think of thy love so enduring and 
fond, 
That follows us over life's hot, arid desert. 
Until we shall reach the green pastures 
beyond. 

Hand clasped in hand and hearts beating one 
measure, 
Benisons grateful and loving we breathe ; 
Ever around this pure shrine of affection 
Chaplets of hallowed remembrance will 
wreathe. 
Here would we pledge in the strength of our 
manhood 
Ever to cherish the loves of the past ; 
Faithful through all to our dear Alma Mater, 

True to ourselves and to her to the last. 
College of the City of New York^ 1875. 



VIATICUM, 55 



VIATICUM. 

A Poem for the Tenth Anniversary of 
THE Class of 1875 of the College 
of the City of New York. 



IJNIE was in the days that we fondly 
recall, 
When the section-book held us 
in scholarly thrall, 
When "los" were the prizes of life in our 

eyes. 
When we bolted stale learning and Chellborg's 

fresh pies, 
When we revelled in lore at the city's ex- 
pense. 
And rang the drear changes on case, mood 
and tense, 




5 6 VIATICUM. 

Ah, then Inspiration was lodged in our 

throats. 
Gushing forth in our song like the dust from 

old coats. 
But now, times have altered — no longer our 

lives 
Are set unto music, but trammelled with 

gyves. 
The hopes and the fancies that gladdened 

life's morn 
Have flown like the birds when the summer 

is gone, 
And we sternly confront'the long seasons to 

come 
With hearts that are earnest but lips that are 

dumb. 

But hold ! what an elegy I — some one I hear — 
Are we wrinkled and bent, are you sixty and 

sere ? 
Hoiv precociously senile you poets ivould grow 
With your spinning of rhymes and your bor- 
rowing woe I 



VIA TICUM. 5 7 

Are we so many midges io die ere the day 
Waxes half-way to noon ? — we iinplore you 

delay 
Till your time comes your toothless, lugubrious 

strains, 
Or give us a poet with blood in his veins. 

And the point is well taken, our blood 

courses thick, 
Our pulses with energy curbless are quick ; 
We have stomachs whose craving no carking 

care dulls ; 
We have flesh on our bones and good brain 

in our skulls ; 
Of talents, the pleasing round number of 

ten ; 
Aspirations surpassing our own boldest ken. 
Our names shall be by-words on far distant 

shores, 
The blue vault grow turgid with nations' 

applause, 
And the age that contains our collective 

careers 



5« VIATICUM. 

Phosphoresce like a match-box through all 

coming years. 
Which, being translated, means briefly that 

we 
Are launched on a squally, tempestuous sea, 
Where we paddle round barks, get upset, 

scramble back. 
But never lose sight of our course on the 

tack 
To success, which we'll gain, after long years 

of strife 
Unremitting and moist, in the tub-race of life. 
And ere life with waiting grows tedious and 

cloys. 
We hope to be blest with man's coveted toys. 
Wealth — fountain of power — we hunger to 

hold 
O'er obsequious vassals the sceptre of gold. 
Position — a part in political broils, 
To stir up the cauldron, and then when it 

boils 
A pretty loud voice in dividing the stew, 
Not forgetting our own purely personal due. 



VIA TICUM. 59 

Distinction in letters — the craving to fill 
White pages with spiderish ramblings of 

quill — 
Our stock in oblivion that like ourselves 
Will moulder to dust rang'd in order on 

shelves. 
And when all is over, pall-bearers of note, 
Expressions of sorrow got neatly by rote, 
Resolutions of condolence trink'd out with 

rhymes. 
And a column at least in the Tribune and 

2^i))ies. 

Yet, with all this before you, I say you are old, 
And I charge you in frankness be never cajoled 
By your strength or ambition or glibness of 

tongue 
Into thinking your world is yet dewy and 

young. 
Can you dimly discern through the deepening 

haze, 
That purples the distance and thwarts the 

fond gaze, 



6o VIA TICUM. 

That land than all others more verdant and 

fair, 
Where we breathed in the blue of the sky in 

the air, 
Where the moon winnowed silver on streams 

as they fled, 
Where sunlight unstinted o'er nature was shed, 
And the white clouds adrift in the azure ex- 
panse 
Were freighted with day-dreams from ports of 

Romance ? 
We wandered abroad, sunny-hearted estrays 
From the Golden Age fallen on prim, modern 

days. 
On pipelets of willow rude-shapen and shrill 
Woke music that erst churlish mortals would 

thrill, 
When Pan, the Great, hobbled at large on the 

plain. 
And tossed off a tune to his rollicking train. 
There pleasure was more than a fast-fleeting 

wraith. 
We were wise in the untutored wisdom of faith; 



VIATICUM. 6 1 

We cared not for fate's decree, fortune's rebuff, 
For Life throbbed within us and Life was 
enough. 

In the world of our present, Life dwindles, — 

its zest 
Is lost in the breathless and maddening quest 
For baubles that melt in the warmth of the 

touch, 
Eluding yet tempting the feverish clutch. 
And barren the days that bestow as they pass 
But blue of the sky and the green of the grass. 
And bring us not fame, useful knowledge and 

gold. 
In greed and ambition I say we are old. 

Shall we give up the strife then and seek to 

return 
To our dream-world, and, safely there, quickly 

unlearn 
The hard, bitter lessons these later years 

taught. 
And banish for aye the sad burden of thought ? 



62 VIA TICUM. 

Ah no ! we are men, and the land that we love 
Is as far from our reach as the soft sky above. 
With a very ill grace we should idle away 
The days of our present world, playing at play. 
The joys would be tasteless — the spirit has 

flown 
With the years that have past and the beards 

that have grown. 
(Moreover the law all our fine ardor damps 
With a stringent decree on the subject of 

tramps.) 

But to-night, as your poet, I fain would recall 
The life-poem revelled in once by us all ; 
And I charge you keep sacred and fresh to 

the last 
The stay for life's journey bequeathed from 

the past — 
Recollections of rapture and virginal truth, 
That were ours in Fancy-Land, Fairy-Land, 

Youth. 



JUAN PONCE DE LEON 



AND 



BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS. 




JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND BAR- 
TOLOME DE LAS CASAS. 

(hispaniola, 1512.) 

Ponce de Leon. 

OST thou believe the tidings late 

arrived, 
Of Bimini and of its sparkling fount 
Whereof one drinks and straightway sheds 

his aches, 
And all the malady of being old, 
As in the holy tale I've heard at mass, 
They shed their ailments in the troubled 
pool ? 

Las Casas. 

I do believe it true, for God is great 
In our day as he was in Jesus Christ's, 
And oft doth send a wondrous miracle 
To waken an enthusiast faith in men, 



66 JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND . 

Who else had only followed close the Church 
In all her rites, insuring Heaven at last, 
But meanwhile sucking every flower of earth 
For carnal sweets. 

Ponce de Leon. 

This day my search begins. 
The risk is small — a few blank, tremulous 

years 
In which no peace, but coveting the past. 

Las Casas. 

What would you with the fountain ? It was 

given 
To quicken sluggish faith — a visible sign 
For sensual, purblind souls who needed one. 
And, having heard this marvel from His hand, 
Say Ah^ yes, God is great, I had forgot. 

Ponce de Leon. 

What would I with the fount ? — my faith is 

sound, 
In much more excellent health than this poor 

frame. 



BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS. 67 

I go to Mass ; my fat Confessor says 
I make the cleanest breast of any one. 
I have been over-virtuous and told 
My sins as they had been had I been young. 
I had committed them at least in heart, 
And it was pleasant to recount them thus. 
But this frail body ! — why I cannot drink 
A flask of wine without a purge next morn, 
And lying by a long, dull week for rest. 
Inez will take my coin and flatter me, 
But well I know my boy receives unbought 
Her constant tenderness, perchance doth 

think 
(He's not so bad — I would if I were he — ) 
His sire would be better off gone hence, 
And wish that one could be both young and 

rich. 
Could I but win her heart from him I'd — 

Las Casas. 

Hold! 
You seek to make God's handiwork a pander. 
The sin of three-score years is not enough. 



6S JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND 

You needs must have a whole eternity 

Of grovelhng with the swine. I'll pray this 

night 
That you may find the ocean's slimy bed, 
Or bleach with orbless sockets on the sun 
Upturned, 'ere you may see the fount of 

youth. 

Ponce de Leon. 

Forgive me, father ; pray not thus I beg ; 
Forgive an old man's rambling tongue that 

aye 
Was lewder than himself. Behold this arm 
That now I scarce can strain above my head; 
Once I could grasp a lithe Toledo blade. 
And, whirling it in sport with dazzling speed, 
Clothe me in haloed lightning. I would play, 
Disguised like all the rest, the matador. 
For love of risk that still wi^ never danger. 
The brute would corner me and gore the air, 
And feel my rapier searching 'twixt his ribs. 
Then I could swim a league in mad delight, 
The water boxed me in its vixen mirth, 



BAR TO LOME DE LAS CASAS. 69 

And hugged me with a woman's wantoning. 
Ah, life was worth the living till I turned 
Some two-score years, then it began to seem 
As if my day were over, but I still 
Must stay to tell old tales and bear dull 

jibes. 
If death were but a sleep and I could have 
In everlasting dream my vanished youth, 
I'd quit realities and seek the dream. 

Las Casas. 

Thy fleshly soul is groping towards the light. 
Thou mayst have youth through all eternity, 
Not as a vague, unsatisfying dream, 
But as a live reality with God. 

Ponce de Leon. 

Yea, I would have the live reality. 
I dream my youth o'er often now at night. 
But ever there is something that withholds 
Just at the last the sweets I fain would grasp. 
I beg thy prayers that I may find the fount 
That giveth youth, not torturing dreams of it. 



70 JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND 
Las Casas. 

I'll pray for thee that God may cause the 

earth 
To swallow up the fount He summoned forth, 
And there may raise in sacred effigy 
His own Son bleeding on the holy cross. 

Ponce de Leon. 

O pray not so ! wouldst arrogate to be 
Wiser than God on what is best for man ; 
He did create it and shalt thou gainsay ? 

Las Casas. 

How earthy blind thou art, as blind as he 
Who holdeth close his eye a paltry coin 
And doth shut out the very sun of Heaven ! 
Tear from thy spirit's eye the fleshly lust 
That hides eternity. Come thou w^th me ! 
This hour shalt thou find immortal youth ; 
Thou shalt be holy — holiness is youth, 
The being like to God who changeth not — 



BartoLome de las CASAS. 7i 

And thou shalt join, e'en here on earth, the 

throng 
Of angels young from all eternity, 
And saints gone hence whose youth hath been 

restored. 
Plainer than spoken words, within thy heart 
Their prompting shall inspire to noble deeds. 
And by a thousand unmistaking signs 
Their guarding presence shall be manifest. 
Come thou with me ! thy few short years 

below 
Thou shalt pass toiling for these heathen 

souls 
Who ne'er have heard of Him who died for 

them. 
Thou shalt have youth immortal and sweet 

rest 
And never wish the fever back. 

Thou wilt? 

Ponce de Leon. 

I am a man of arms, a worldling born ; 
In battle I have slain a hundred Moors ; 



72 JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND 

I should go mad within your brotherhood. 

father, pray that I may be restored 

To beauty, strength and hope and I will 

make 
Most ample recompense to thee and God. 

1 will be valiant for all time on earth 
Against the heretics ; not one of them 
My vigilance and vengeance shall escape ; 
With fire and sword I'll purge them from 

God's sight, 
And hold the world forever true to Him. 

Las Casas, 

I'll pray for thee, thou poor, misguided one ! 
Knowest what thou dost ask so fervently ? 
To be shut out for aye from Paradise, 
And wallow here below in blood and lust ? 
Never to sit white robed at God's feet ? 
Ne'er to behold sweet Mary Mother's face ? 
Never to walk with Christ in holy bliss ? 
Ne'er to reach sainthood and be pure in 
heart ? 



Bartolome de las CASAS. 73 

Thou canst not bribe me with the heretics, 
Ponce de Leon, I will pray for thee ! 

Ponce de Leon. 

Pray not ! I read thy meaning in thine eyes. 
ThoLi'lt pray that I may search within a span, 
Yet never find the fountain of glad youth. 
Father, forget that I have asked aught, 
Forget me and pray not ! 

Las Casas. 

I'll pray for thee. 



SONNETS. 




NATURE. 11 



NATURE. 

JHE Parcae stern who cowed the 
world in awe, 
When Thought was young and 
Art was in its bloom, 
Though Paganism fills a classic tomb, 
Rule modern Christians as the men of yore. 
Hoping to master Fate in prudent law, 
We toil and plot and close our eyes to doom. 
Or seek to guard against impending gloom. 
Devoutly nailing horse-shoes to the door. 

And all is vain. Some sit in stoic calm, 

Callous to ills that cruel fortune wreaks ; 
Some, with Promethean heart and Titan arm, 
Curse and defy the bristling vulture- 
beaks ; 
And some would find an anaesthetic balm, 
T/iy will be done their upward gaze be- 
speaks. 




7 8 HELEN OF TROY. 



HELEN OF TROY. 

S it a joy to live for aye in song ? 
Dost thou with thirst that glory 
ne'er can sate, 
Upon the dark flood's thither margin wait, 
To hear one poet more thy reign prolong ? 
Or dost contemn the worshippers who throng, 
And curse thy Nemesis far-eyed — the fate 
That doomed through thee to lay earth 
desolate, 
And would not let thy name die with the 
wrong ? 

Remorse ne'er bowed that head of w^ondrous 
gold 
Erect, defiant of immortal shame. 
But art so weary, of thy tale oft told ; 

Of man's idolatry and woman's blame ; 
Thou would'st been born a beldame crook'd 
and cold 
To have been spared eterne ennui of fame ? 



LOVED EVEN YET. 79 



LOVED EVEN YET. 



ORGIVE thou wilt, dear Love, but 

O forget 
rhe mood estranged, the cruel shock 
and pain, 
The bitter, jealous words of lips insane. 
Whose wounds, beyond the heal of keen 

regret, 
Those brown eyes with a dewy trembling 

wet. 
Thou wilt forgive, nay, more, wilt search in 

vain 
On thy pure loyalty for speck of stain. 
And, crushed by love's requite, love even 
yet. 



8o LOVED EVEN YET, 

Darling, a love as thine so true and good, 
For its own chosen one a shrine must 
build ; 
Know not too well this heart, its idolhood 

Unworthy, with unfaith ignoble filled ; 
Nor wake — I still that presence . bright 
would seem, 
Wrapped in the aureole of tender dream. 



AFTER SICKiVESS. 



Si 




AFTER SICKNESS. 

DRIFTED out upon the un- 
known deep, 
That hems our being round on 
every side, 
And thou with tearful hope a breeze did 
bide 
From Heaven to bear me homeward to thy 

keep. 
My thoughts were as the dreams of troubled 
sleep. 
My visions blurred as stars upon the tide ; 
But o'er the narrow stretch that seemed so 
wide 
I saw a lonely watcher wait and weep. 



What if the breeze had drawn from off this 
shore, 
I would haVe wandered back from yonder 
coast ; 



82 AFTER SICKNESS. 

Would'st thou have ta'en me to thy heart 

once more, 
Or, horror ! would'st thou not have known 

and fled. 
As blooming Life aye shrinkest from the 

dead, 
Not cried 'tis tkoii, but said alas I poor ghost? 




A YEAR. ^3 

A YEAR. 

ND has a year gone ; this again 
the snow ? 
'Tis vain to summon recollec- 
tions dim ; 
Visions as vague as August landscapes 
swim, 
Of Spring that came and set the world aglow, 
Of Summer's cloudless blue and green below. 
And Autumn's purple robe, —again the rim 
Of Winter's ermine fringes every limb — 
'Tis but a dream that time doth onward flow. 

Ah love! doth stealthy Time purloin our 
years. 
By making them like blissful phantoms fly, 
To pay them back in usury of tears, 

And leaden sorrow of reality, 
When one of us in waking anguish hears 
The other's dream-farewell? 

God grant not I ! 



84 



EME/^SON, 



EMERSON. 




O thee the prayer of all was 
granted — Light ! 
Thou hast felt life-warmth 
through the age's rime, 
Hast pierced the mask of flesh, the veil 
of time, 
That heart from heart and soul from soul 

benight. 
And whoso kens thy word to man aright 
Finds in the world a spiritual clime. 
Beholds the Present as a land sublime, 
Peopled with beings of heroic height. 

To eras gone their prophet-seers have brought 
God's new-born truth to feed a hungering 

race ; 
And thou, like those of old, hast read His 

thought 



EMERSOlV. 



S5 



Writ in the stars by night ; — His secret 
place, 
The solemn forest, thou by day hast sought. 
And heard His voice through boughs that 
hid His face, 



86 



LOXGFELLOW. 




LONGFELLOW. 

GENTLE minstrel ! songs of 

thine can start 
In eyes of stony calm the boon of 
tears ; 
The thoughts that swell the current of the 
years 
Vex not the placid sweetness of thine art ; 
But whoso goeth from the fray apart 

To weep away his wounds, while in his 

ears 
Still rankle cruel taunts and sullen sneers, 
Will bless thee — healer of the bruised heart ! 

The clamorous day heeds not thy plaintive 
notes, 
But when the night with w^nd of darkness 
stills 



LONGFELLOW. 87 

The Strife of bustling hands and blatant 
throats, 
And twilight's last gray lingers on the 
hills, 
Then through my reverie thy music floats, 
As through the dusk the song of whip-poor- 
wills. 




BRYANT. 
BRYANT. 

HE forest anthem from green choirs 
of trees 
Was ever in his ears ; — the 
woodland brooks, 
Prattling like children through dim, mossy 
nooks, 
Were eloquent of sacred mysteries. 
A bard who sang afar from haunts of man ! 
(Man's heart is cankerous with greed and 

lust.) 
And he forgot life's sordid age and rust. 
Where earth is young as when Time first 
began. 

The poet with a sympathizing care, 

Enshrined the bloom of nature in his art. 
And sent it forth to glad the breathless 
mart : 
Here mid the noonday turmoil of the 
streets. 
His opened volume sheds upon the air 

The piny fragrance of those cool retreats. 



V EN VOL . ^9 




LENV^OI. 
(to the muse.) 

IhIS is the record of our secret joy, 
The stolen hours when we love- 
vigils kept 

While 'neath the stars the earth in silence 

slept. 

Thou art a mistress warm of heart but coy, 

And for the few hours spent in sweet employ 

When over waters hush'd the moonlight 

crept, 
I have through lonely nights thine absence 
wept 
Whose constant love and beauty ne'er could 
cloy. 



90 L'EN'VOi. 

I cannot flee the haunts of toil and wealth, 
Choose poverty and follow thee alone, 
I still must chaffer in the market-place. 
And wilt thou yet wnth love's delicious stealth 
Grant sweet tryst of the cynic world un- 
known, 
And soothe me with thy tender, dream- 
ful face ? 



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